CASE STUDY
Seashore Food Distributors, Inc.

The Company

Seashore Food Distributors, Inc. was established in 1920, and is a leading food distributor in southern New Jersey.  Seashore provides a wide range of fresh, frozen, and canned foods to hotels, health care facilities, restaurants, schools, and institutional accounts in three mostly rural counties. 

The Business Case

Seashore Foods base of 25 employees grows to 48 during peak seasons.  As Seashores business grew over the past few years, the companys management realized there was a need to implement a process to allow routes to be generated more quickly and accurately.  The time it took to create routes takes on more importance during the companys peak season, which represents 45% of annual volume.

Seashore had three main objectives:

1. To automate the routing process.
2. To generate routes within 1 hours time allowing products to be picked, staged, and ready for distribution in a timely manner.
3. To minimize missed delivery appointments and to better estimate time at a stop.  If needed, be able to contact customers in advance to inform them of time delays.

The Appian Solution

Appian Logistics provided Seashore with necessary tools to revolutionize the routing process. Appian conducted an on-site visit providing one-on-one training for Seashore personnel ensuring optimal software implementation and usage.
Appians Direct Route was integrated with the companys NDS system allowing Seashore to optimize truck routing and to prepare for expansion in future shipping.

The Result

Seashores system was automated allowing routes to be generated in less than an hour, even during peak seasons.

• Fleet utilization was improved
• The companys management team was able to make informed profitable decisions about fleet configuration.
• The company achieved a rapid implementation and were able to run Direct Route live the first day